Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Fever Ray - I'm scared shitless

If you don't know Karin Elisabeth Dreijer Andersson, she forms one half of Swedish outfit The Knife and is about to release her debut solo project Fever Ray. I'm interviewing Karin in just a couple of hours for top shelf lifestyle magazine Huck, and her infamous reluctancy for the media has me shitting my breeches. I've interviewed many an artist but it's been a long time since I was nervous about the encounter. As for the album...

Dark, mossy, cold and disorientating, yet still beautiful and enchanting Fever Ray is kinda like a really sexy ghost. Karin's voice ranges from trembling and fragile to a stronger haunt. Where The Knife stabs, Fever Ray weeps - but under the weep is a tense, vengeful sound. "Seven" has more than a touch of Royksopp in its beat while the beat for "Triangle Walks" is like Enya on a bad trip. Karen O needs to borrow "When I Grow Up" for the Where the Wild Things Are soundtrack. So too could first single and album opener "If I Had A Heart", a prowling slow trance with a deep looming chant running throughout. The film clip is by The Knife's live visual artist Andreas Nilsson and is like voodoo on the bayous, and at just 4 minutes is far scarier than an entire sitting of Twilight.

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About Me

Stop, Drop, Rock n Roll is produced by a Canadian-born Australian living in Amsterdam. He is the Assistant Editor for iamsterdam.com and writes about music and stuff for Time Out Amsterdam, Amsterdam Weekly and Spin Earth amongst other various publications.